Pandora: iPhone Driving Revenue Increases

Is the iPhone inadvertently aiding Internet radio? While Pandora's main source of revenue is in advertising deals, a growing portion of the company's revenue comes from affiliate downloads that drive sales in the iTunes Store or on Amazon MP3.

Is the iPhone inadvertently aiding Internet radio? While Pandora's main source of revenue is in advertising deals, a growing portion of the company's revenue comes from affiliate downloads that drive sales in the iTunes Store or on Amazon MP3, according to TechCrunch--and the primary mover in that regard these days is the iPhone.

According to Pandora's CTO, the company is enabling about a million track sales per month due to the affiliate deals, and fully 20 percent of those are coming straight from the iPhone's free Pandora app, the report said. (The app displays a link to buy the song that's currently playing.) And since there's no more DRM in the iTunes Store, anyone can feel safe buying a track over the air, knowing that they can sync it to their computer, car, or other devices back at home--something you can't say for some other over-the-air music stores.

There's also a "bulk purchase" feature that lets you bookmark a bunch of songs you like from Pandora over time, and then buy 'em all in one shot from the iTunes Store or Amazon MP3. Those account for about 10 percent of the purchases, according to the article. Holy crap, there might be a business model for the music industry in here somewhere.

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